


I don't even know what I would have titled this if I finished it

by pind



Category: Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pind/pseuds/pind
Summary: A list of major story beats and a short attempt at actually writing it in some capacity. I failed, but figured I might as well post it anyway.
Relationships: Albel Nox/Original Character(s)





	I don't even know what I would have titled this if I finished it

**Author's Note:**

> In which I am the only person I know of who has thought of making the OC a player instead of a native. Was the twist of them being a videogame dumb? Maybe. Was the twist _wasted_? Definitely. When playing it, I thought it was a HUGE waste that a party member wasn't secretly a player. Would have made it way more interesting.
> 
> And that was also the only way I could think of getting a girl in there with Albel without her being from Aquaria or just a nobody, which have both been done before. Also I play games and WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, BABY
> 
> Anyway. If anyone wants to use any of this to write something with some actual flesh to it, do feel free to. I'd be really glad if someone else wrote what I couldn't muster up the effort to.

List of story beats:

  * A late-20-something 4D being who dropped out of college from depression upon realizing she'll never be able to strive for more than she can earn a degree for, which is pretty much nothing. She just plays ES all day now, trying to find anything to spark her drive to find any kind of satisfaction in the real world.
  * Oops I never gave her real self a name
  * Her first character is a female Featherfolk named Jonquet. She's spent exhaustive hours on it, so it's endgame OP garbage. No stranger to PVP, but not especially good at it 'cause lol she's a caster
  * She took a liking to Elicoor II's Airyglyph, but found the way it treated women to be too difficult to deal with, so she rerolled a male Elicoorian named Jeannot Dies. (Kill me, I like mirrored names.)
  * She works as a mercenary and is often told by members of the army that she should try enlisting. Just because she likes Airyglyph doesn't mean she agrees with their causes, though. She refuses.
  * She only fights monsters, not humanoids.
  * She's tracked down by Albel because he's tired of hearing about the mercenary. He demands a duel to see if she's worth all the gossip. Because she's so selective about her battles, stuck around Airyglyph (low level) and is on a relatively new character, she's pretty weak compared to him and goes down easy. He sneers at her.
  * She's pretty pissed about this and is tempted to switch to her main to curbstomp him, but with its max level and gear, he'd be dead in one hit and she doesn't want to kill humanoids.
  * MAD LEVEL GRINDING START. She gets a decent level over him and challenges him again. She's still too used to using symbology as a Featherfolk and not used to using a sword, so he easily disarms her. She's still angry, but he says he won't waste his time on her again.
  * She grinds more and ambushes him on a patrol route. He tells her she's made this into a real fight, attacking a captain. She answers that she just wanted a nice surprise sparring match with her "good old buddy" and it can't be helped if he sees it as more.
  * She's easily disarmed again because she still sucks at swordsmanship. But she's done playing by honor rules. As her main, she learned hand-to-hand because not everyone is willing to let you cast your symbols. She starts dodging and redirecting him until she finally has him face down in the dirt with his arm twisted and a knee in his spine.
  * He's pissed. But he's also angry that she's not using the right weapon. She's obviously meant for hand-to-hand, so gauntlets suit her more, why is she using a saber? She answers that she wants to learn to use a sword. Well, he's impressed by her hand-to-hand, and she's impressed by his swordsmanship, so they decide teaching each-other would be pretty beneficial for both of them.
  * They both get Pretty Good, but she's lagging behind him. He's getting as good as she is at hand-to-hand, but she's not excelling so fast in swordsmanship. She can only win because her stats are higher as a Player who's been grinding and has access to endgame gear.
  * He tells her she'll never be good enough with a sword to join the army, but they still wouldn't mind having her if she stuck with hand-to-hand. She declines; she doesn't want to join the military. She loves the land, not its people or its ideals. She will not fight for them, especially when they won't even allow women within their ranks. "What does that have to do with anything?" uh oh u slipped up "Uh, it's just. It's a whole other half of your people you could be deploying. Even if you don't think they'll be as strong as your men, they have the same capacity for skill. To deny them entry is to deny them personhood as citizens, and I won't fight for that. I couldn't look my mother in the face if I did."
  * Oops I didn't write any more



* * *

The failure to try and execute that, where I don't even follow said story beats:

_'But he's so young,'_ she had thought the first time she saw him through the eyes of a featherfolk woman. Unconscious after his final enraged wail, tracks from tears born of anger marring his face. Her eyes stayed fixed on the gauntlet she removed, mourning the loss of his arm years later. However old he was, he was too young for such a life-changing injury.

_'He's too young,'_ she had cried to herself the second time she saw him from where she hid. Agonized shrieks echoed through the cavern as his arm was freshly charred and falling apart along with his father. She wanted to help, to undo such a traumatic event, but to do so would insult the person he had already become later in life.

_'No. The proper age for such an injury is the day of your last breath,'_ she had concluded the third time she had seen him from the mouth of an alleyway. He let out pained hisses and growls and pleas for his body to hurry up and finish growing. She had knelt before him, offering and then forcing healing upon him when he'd snarled that he didn't need her pity. But the growing pains had numbed, and that was good enough for her.

The next few years they met, she had watched through the eyes of a 'fellow' Elicoorian man Jeannot Dies, who had all the raw strength he could need, but none of the skill. They contrasted each-other well in that regard and it gave her an excuse to see him, to quarrel with him, to know him. She did all she could to ease the healing process, both physical (even as a swordsman, she could never give up supportive symbology no matter how many hours it took to find that blasted book) and emotional.

'Years' later, she knew she was just as guilty of enabling him. She would never know which he truly needed; someone who would hold him, someone who would hear him out, someone he could tower over, someone his equal, someone who could best him, someone who could put him in his place...

She had tried being all of those things for him, and she never knew which was better for him; whether he came a little closer to fixing the glaring flaws he hated or whether she merely reinforced them by either offering or forcing comfort upon him. Whether she should have remained as an ear, a shoulder, and advice; whether she should never have held him down and whispered how beautiful he was until it was his arm around her neck instead of his hand.

_'Perhaps it's better to learn young,'_ she resigned herself before the last time she saw him through Jeannot's eyes. He and the people he pretended not to care about stepped up to the time gate, and he turned back to impatiently grab and drag her along through it when she hesitated. Despite her fear for herself, all she thought as they stepped through was, _'I'm so sorry, Albel.'_

And then she was back in Gemity, trying to stop crying as she stumbled out of the terminal room and along the path to the Arkives. It was a frenzied rush to try and find where they might have been spat out by that damnable exit. Why would anyone build such a doorway when they didn't want it to be used?

When she saw them for the first time through her own real eyes, they were being chased. She almost missed them as her gaze fell upon the body she'd controlled a mere hour prior. She grabbed Jeannot's hand, hoping he'd know her as well as she knew him and they'd all be able to trust her through him. When their eyes met, however, she couldn't say she knew the man at all.

They were all but empty save for a resigned confusion. Jeannot was not her. He wasn't anything anymore.

"I don't think I'm supposed to talk to people right now," he said quietly, his voice wavering like a child trying to imitate an adult.

A clawed hand punctured the skin of her wrist and she was forced to let go. Jeannot's delay had called the attention of the rest of the group.

"Keep your hands to yourself," were the first words he'd ever spoken to her as herself, and she couldn't help but start crying again.

"Albel..." As the rest of the group rounded back, she wiped the tears away and cleared her throat. "Come with me. Please. We can figure out what to do once you're all safe."

"Safely behind bars?"

"Do you want to know what happened to Jeannot or not?"

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe that was difficult to follow? She's a Player, so she can kind of skip around time as she pleases. She first saw him after his defeat by Fayt and co., then went to see him when he was younger.
> 
> ...I realize the "held down" part may have sounded bad. I did not mean to imply noncon. He just seems the type to need to be forced to confront unfamiliar territory like _feelings_ or else he'll just avoid it. That's all she did; kept him from running away from words.
> 
> ~~But yes I did imply she topped~~


End file.
